Snowy Mtn Hydron Scheme Series 1s

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Originally Posted by dennisS1

exploration companies.
There is a very interesting pic of two Land Rovers been used in Northern SA a 107/109 and a 86/88 the interesting bit is the LW is left hand drive, the exploration Company was probably US but LW S1 weren’t big in the US.
Dennis

PS at a show in SA a few years back the first LC to Australia was on show. 1958 model.
When I ask if I might park my 1948 next to it for a pic, Toythingy answer was NO. Apparently that might prove that LC's weren’t the first 4WD in Australia.

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The company involved would have probably have been Prakla (German) or Compagnie General de Geophysique (French). Both were major Landrover users in the fifties and sixties and both worked in South Australia. I don't remember CGG having LHD Landrovers in Australia, but it is possible. I do remember Prakla having LHD Landrovers, distinguished by, unusually for the time, having all their vehicles white.

While some US companies used Landrovers in the early sixties, all the ones I can remember were locally purchased and hence RHD.

John

The Imperial Japanese army used a tiny 4X4 car in fair numbers : the Kurogane .. a 2 seater with a 2 cylinder motor , the best way to describe it is .. it looked almost exactly like Noddy's car from the Enid Blyton books. At least one made it here to Victoria as we found it in the Vic records . During WW2, Toyota built a nice 4X4 tourer based on a normal Toyota car ..but in very low numbers.. they also manufactured fair numbers of 4X4 trucks .. and Isuzu made a neat 6X4 diesel powered truck in fair numbers too. The designs tended to be inspired from 1930's obsolete U.S. models , Chevrolet etc. Nissan was around then too ... making trucks for the military forces.

Post WW2, they got into copying the contemporary U.S. 4X4 designs ..quick smart ..By the early 1950's Toyota had produced a copy of the Dodge weapons carrier and Jeep clones were built too. The land cruiser we know was very late on the scene. One of the Dodge clones exists here and turns up at MV rallies... early 1950's vintage .

When I worked in a Govt. National park down here in the 70's ...it was all tojos ..not a Landy in sight ... they did have some F100's though, both 4X2 and 4X4 models.

Mike

Here's a link to a brief descrpition of the tiny Japanese Kurogane 4X4 .

Type 95 - Japanese Scout Car

Tatra, of the former Checkaslovakia ( cant spell it ) also built a neat little 4X4 field car in the 1930's .. it was trialled by the British War Office .

Both of these cars preceeded the U.S. Jeep by a few years.